The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You–and Your Coaches

We’ve now entered the dead period of college football, between the conference championship games and the start of the bowl season, which is long on talk and short on play. There’s really only two subjects: who’s going to win the bowl games–especially the BCS title, and all the coaching fires and hires. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the only job in the country to be open is the one formerly belonging to Mack Brown in Austin. With at least 100 top candidates to replace him, the endless speculation should get us to at least New Years–if they could wait that long. I don’t even live in Texas and I think I hate the Longhorns’ program. No wonder A&M hit the eject button to get away from these megalomaniacs. Having Alabama as an in-state rival is one thing, but the Tide never thought they could virtually form their own conference by themselves–like Texas did by forming The Longhorn Network a few years ago. Yee haw.

Texas thinks their program is the only one in a state full of Texas-size egos that has enough FBS teams itself to support it’s own conference. Look again, Horns. You and Oklahoma are the remnants of a latter-day Big Two, Little Six, reliving the old days of the Big Eight that you once welded onto your old Southwest conference that formed the Big 12 for a brief while–before you ran everybody off. You had to bus West Virginia in to try and get back up to 12 schools. Your ego could barely allow the entry of TCU. It crumbled for a reason–YOU. You ran off Nebraska and Colorado, Missouri and Texas A&M.

You may be in the top five in CFB history in wins, but you’ve won one national championship in the last 44 years. Don’t look now but you’re getting ready to get passed in that department by Auburn. Over a 5th of the SEC exceeds or matches your output in the BCS era. No wonder you think you covet our coaches.

Thinking that you had the clout to bring Nick Saban to Austin was big. That was never going to happen. Saban has built a machine in Tuscaloosa. Why would he want to start over? There are ten times the egomaniac boosters there than at the Capstone. Besides, in the SEC, no one will ever question your strength of schedule. You were simply the pawn in a very cruel Jimmy Sexton play. We’ve seen those before. The end result is usually that everybody gets raises and the cost of tickets go up. Besides, we at Auburn don’t need you to steal Saban to return to glory. We’re having some pretty good success ourselves on his watch.

Now you might be thinking that you want Gus Malzahn. This is the second time in three weeks that I’m having to address the subject. Gus got his raise already. Not because of you but because of merit. For good measure, it’s rumored that you may also want Jimbo Fisher. Luckily for us and them, waiting until January 7th to announce your new hire simply is not a viable option because of recruiting. It would leave barely a month before national signing day and right now the rest of the Lone Star state is trying to poach your commitments–especially that team that plays in the SEC.

I’ll give Texas one thing. Their coaches enjoy almost unparalleled stability. Mack Brown was there for 16 seasons, the second longest tenure behind Darrell Royal. It is a good program and they have great tradition. But not being in the SEC, they’re going to find it hard winning natties in the coming decades. The key to doing that isn’t our individual coaches. It’s the conference itself. We have cohesion. No single team is greater than the sum. Unlike you, we don’t lose programs, we gain them. The SEC has it’s big fish, but we play in an even bigger big pond. Go fish for a coach somewhere else.

10 Comments

Texas seems to have more success in poaching coordinators (Chizik and Muschamp, for example), who I guess do not have to put up with the booster issues as much as the HC.

I too do not care if Saban goes or stays. Actually displaying a desire for Saban to go away falls right into the trap that the bammers lay for us AU fans, that of pinning the “little brother” label on us. I say that we build our own program up the Auburn way, and throw it up against the best that Tuscaloosa U can muster, and let the chips (or the missed field goals) fall where they may. If Saban can deliver the best for them, then let him serve it up.

Michael Val
(who doesn’t think he will ever understand the politics of the coaching carousel, but is enjoying watching it go ’round and ’round!)

For those who have not seen my past comments: Our local group of “coaches” were meeting for lunch after THE IRON BOWL of 2013, when an LSU sidewalk alumnus commented,”You guys must be keeping your fingers crossed that saban will go to texas.” I immediately replied, “We don’t care what saban does, we have our coach and we’re going to the BCS National Championship game and they’re NOT !” There was immediate silence.

This Texas story should provide some humor over the next month. If you have any Texas friends, you see where this audacity comes from. I think state pride is a part of their school curriculum and the parents probably take a blood oath when they dedicate or christen their children…

Who was the team (either last year or the year before) that expected a BIG HC hire because they were such a prized program and after about 4-5 coaches turned the job down, it just became humorous because everyone they interviewed wasn’t interested? I think they ended up with a second/third tier coach; drawing a blank…

At this level, I don’t think salary is the biggest item on coach’s list of priorities. I’m not naïve, I know it’s definitely a factor but I don’t think it’s the biggest factor. I think coaches want to get into a market where they can be successful and raise their families. Momma bear and her kids want to grow roots. I wish the colleges would show more loyalty to their coaches in that department.

I admired the Texas program while I was young…then I moved to Austin. Those folks think they are the be all and end of the football universe. They have a respectable four football national championships, one being a BCS. Listening to them talk, one would think they win it every year. If you ask me there’s a lot of hot wind blowing into a sail full of massive holes.

Dudes, Texas is a hot mess. I don’t care who you are, but would you really want to go work for a place that ‘leaked’ your “resignation” before you had actually made the decision to resign?

And don’t tell me that Brown knew all along that he was going to hang up his cleats. He was out recruiting. You don’t break your back on the road in Florida for their mai tai’s or to find your Destiny* to just return home and resign. Texas is obnoxious; the boosters are obnoxious; the Fans are obnoxious…..which means one thing: Welcome Home, Lane Kiffin**.

*Unless, you’re Mike Price, then it’s all fair game
**Because THAT would be hilarious and awesome, but mostly, hilarious

Right, right because the juxtaposition of guns *and* Texas would really give folks the wrong impression………(I suspect the real reason that they renamed the Red River ‘Rivalry’ was to protect Longhorns from acknowledging being blown out TWICE in the early 2000’s by the Boomer Sooners. Because, really, since when did Texas give a rat’s ass about being poltically correct when it comes to firearms??)